Credit

Caption

Star forming region. Coloured infrared image of Monoceros R2 (Mon R2), a star forming region. Mon R2 is the yellowish area at centre, where many young, pre-main sequence stars are embedded in a cloud of hydrogen gas and dust. The bright patches to either side are reflection nebulae surrounding young type B stars. Mon R2 is about 2700 light years from Earth. This image was made as part of the Two-Micron All-Sky Survey (2MASS) project.